Identifying and Advocating Best Practices in the Criminal Justice System. A Texas-Centric Examination of Current Conditions, Reform Initiatives, and Emerging Issues with a Special Emphasis on Capital Punishment.

Monday, 17 September 2012

Today's California Prop. 34 Roundup

Yet there have been times when The Bee has stopped and taken a
U-turn, reversing a longstanding editorial position. One of the biggest
came last week, when we ended the editorial board's long-standing
support for California's death penalty.

We
didn't make this change lightly. It came after years of debate and
discussion that preceded the current makeup of the editorial board. It
came after many months of research and meetings with legal scholars and
groups on both sides of the death penalty debate.

The position we
took – that the death penalty is unworkable and unfixable in California –
was crafted with several considerations in mind. We wanted to respect
those Californians – and previous members of the editorial board – who
believe that executions are a just punishment for convicted murderers
who commit the most horrible of crimes.

The SacBee also published four other views, "Responses from experts: Should death penalty be scrapped?." It includes, "YES: Jesus taught us to forgive, not to exact vengeance," by Kathi McShane; "NO: Capital punishment needs to be mended, not ended," by Kent Scheidegger; "YES: For victims, human costs of this legal beast are too high," by Ron Briggs, and; "NO: We must act based on one of our seminal values: Justice," by Rod Pacheco.

It's the nightmare of capital punishment, for supporters and
opponents alike - an innocent person condemned to death and executed.

As Californians prepare to vote in November on Proposition
34, which would reduce all death sentences to life in prison without
parole, both sides on the issue agree that the state has never executed a
prisoner who was later proved to be innocent.

Still, doubts
persist about the guilt of an inmate who was put to death in 1998. And
five men sentenced to death under current California law were later
cleared of the murder charges that put them on Death Row.

Those five cases illustrate "how easily someone who did not commit the murder could have been executed," said John Cotsirilos, lawyer for Lee Farmer, who was freed in 1999 after 17 years in prison.

And:

California has the nation's largest Death Row, with more than 720
inmates. Of the 13 who have been put to death since 1992, when
executions resumed after a 25-year halt, little doubt was ever raised
about the guilt of 12 of them. But one man, Thomas Thompson, was executed for a killing he may not have committed.

Thompson was convicted of raping and fatally stabbing Ginger
Fleischli in 1981 in the Laguna Beach (Orange County) apartment he
shared with Fleischli's ex-boyfriend, David Leitch.

Both
men were tried separately. The prosecutor in Thompson's trial argued
that Thompson had been alone with Fleischli and had the sole motive for
killing her. Later, at Leitch's trial, the same prosecutor argued that
Leitch had been there and had ordered Thompson to kill Fleischli.

Leitch
was convicted of second-degree murder. At a 1995 parole hearing, he
said he had seen Thompson and Fleischli having apparently consensual sex
that night. If jurors had heard that testimony and believed it, they
could not have convicted Thompson of the capital charge of rape-murder,
and because rape was the alleged motive for Fleischli's murder, they
might have cleared him altogether.

Jurors also weren't told that two inmates who said Thompson had admitted the murder were informants with questionable records.

He was Orange County's highest-profile, toughest and most quotable
judge, and he sentenced more killers – nine – to death than any other
local jurist.

In retirement, he came out against the death penalty, not for humane reasons but as a waste of taxpayer money.

Former Superior Court Judge Donald McCartin, 87, died Saturday near his retirement home in Bass Lake in Madera County.

His judicial career, colorful demeanor and critical assessment of the
justice system were the subjects of a 2005 book titled "Perfect
Justice," written by local true-crime author Don Lasseter and published
by Seven Locks Press. It was subtitled, "a legendary judge's passionate
defense of the ultimate criminal penalty."

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The StandDown Texas Project

The StandDown Texas Project was organized in 2000 to advocate a moratorium on executions and a state-sponsored review of Texas' application of the death penalty.
To stand down is to go off duty temporarily, especially to review safety procedures.

Steve Hall

Project Director Steve Hall was chief of staff to the Attorney General of Texas from 1983-1991; he was an administrator of the Texas Resource Center from 1993-1995. He has worked for the U.S. Congress and several Texas legislators. Hall is a former journalist.